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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24653305">More Than True</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth'>DameRuth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flowers [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action/Adventure, Angst, Gen, Pre-Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:34:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24653305</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is nominally part of the TARDIS crew now, but how well does he really fit in? </p><p>[Ah, heck, continuing the Teaspoon imports with *one more* story today, the first in the Flowers sequence, and another of my personal faves. Originally posted 2009.02.09 - 2009.03.13.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flowers [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/14017</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for dark_aegis/Gillian_Taylor as a pinch-hit in the <a href="http://wendymr.livejournal.com/131169.html">2008/2009 OT3 Ficathon,</a> using prompt #3B: <i>"Nine, Rose and Jack on an alien planet. Jack gets kidnapped or claimed as a slave. Rose and Nine have to rescue him. Do not want: non-con."</i></p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Not the story I expected to be writing just now, but I'm a sucker for a ficathon in need . . . ;) It's set very soon after Jack joins the TARDIS crew and involves how he settles in, as it were. I'm slotting this into my "Flowers!verse" series (because I can, and because this reflects my view of how the Early Days went in that 'Verse), but there's nothing particularly AU about this installment, and it can be taken as a canon-compliant "missing moment" standalone, too. Thanks to aibhinn, for the greatly appreciated beta-work, as always. :)</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <b>”Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”<br/>
G. K. Chesterton</b>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose twirled, giggling, showing off her knee-length golden-brown dress and hooded red shoulder cape for the rest of the TARDIS crew. The cape was short and flirty, in the fashion for young women on the east continent of Dorado in this decade. Clearly, the “flirty” bit was going to Rose’s head; she stopped and peeked at the others from the depths of the hood, pretending to be shy, gauging the effect on Jack and the Doctor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor thought she looked lovely, of course, but he thought she was lovely no matter what she wore. Her youth and health and adventurous spirit shone like a constant beacon, clear and untarnished, balm to the Doctor’s weary, jaded soul.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack, now, he was admiring Rose as well, but it wasn’t necessarily his soul doing the thinking. That was obvious even to someone as distanced from human sexuality as the Doctor . . . and it certainly wasn’t lost on Rose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why, Little Red Riding Hood,” Jack said, with a lopsided grin. “How you’ve grown.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose snorted, dropping the role of ingenue without missing a beat. “Red Riding Hood, am I? What does that make you, the Big Bad Wolf?” She smiled again, with less flirtation but more warmth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That warmth might be troubling to the Doctor, in an ordinary way — especially given how Rose had been favoring Jack with such smiles more and more frequently — but something about Rose’s words sent ice water down his spine, the not-quite sensation of nascent probability, cryptic but powerful. Unfortunately, not even a Time Lord could see the answer to the riddle at this stage, so he let the moment pass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack, noticing nothing with his blinkered human senses, continued to grin at Rose, but the expression softened, became more genuine. “You got me. Arooo.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose laughed as intended, maybe a bit louder and longer than the humor deserved, but when her attention shifted to the Doctor (her face going hopeful, seeking his approval and genuinely shy about it), he didn’t comment on the clear and growing attraction between his fellow-travellers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Those colors suit you,” he said, trying to sound gruff and grudging. Rose’s dazzling smile told him he was either unsuccessful or she was getting better at reading him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Liar,” she said, smirking. “You can’t be seeing much of the color in this light.” She waved a hand around at the dim green-orange glow suffusing the control room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m seeing more than you think,” he shot back, putting on a lofty tone. “Different eyes, me. Don’t go thinking I’m human.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No chance of that,” Rose said, rolling her eyes heavenward. “Not with you reminding me seven times a day. Now, I thought there was a reason we were here, besides playing dress-up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A new temporal solenoid,” Jack chimed in. “Though how you’re going to get hold of one without going through the Time Agency is a good question.” The last comment was aimed in the Doctor’s direction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought <i>that</i> would be obvious, ‘specially to you,” the Doctor shot back. “We go somewhere like Dorado. I guarantee, anything you want, you’ll find it here. The locals have a particular fondness for a free market economy. You’ll want to stay close to me,” he added, glowering at Rose. “It’s not the nicest place.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can handle myself,” she shot back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah? Tell that to the slavers if they spot you alone. You'll stand out as a stranger and an easy target, fashionable clothes or not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Slavers?” Rose asked, sounding taken aback, as if she were having real trouble wrapping her mind around the idea. Young and innocent in so many ways — no doubt she thought slavery was a distant, textbook thing, even in her own time and place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It happens,” Jack said, going very serious, backing up the idea. “If there's a slave trade here, you definitely want to stick close to the Doctor. You’d be a real prize for people like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose didn’t have to ask why, the Doctor noticed; she wasn't <i>impossibly</i> innocent, just inexperienced. Her only response was a small-voiced, “Oh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That goes for you, too, Captain,” the Doctor added, fixing Jack with the direct, male-challenge glare that seemed to work best at capturing Jack’s attention. “We've got more than one pretty face on this ship.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack’s chin went up a fraction, defensive, and he met the Doctor's eyes with a touch of belligerence. “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, his tone light but acid-washed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blast. Combined with the earlier tension of Rose as good as flirting at both of them, the Doctor’s intensity had been taken for territoriality, rather than reinforcement of a command. Bloody human males and their testosterone levels; human women tended to be both less aggressive and more tractable. Not always — witness Ace and Leela — but . . . law of averages and all. It was the reason he favored female traveling companions, given a choice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A Time Lord’s pride didn’t allow for backpedaling or explanation, especially over something so closely bordering on domestic issues involving another species. So, instead, the Doctor tried to deflect the conflict. "You just watch yourself," he replied, hewing to the original topic and adding a deeper glower for emphasis.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack's gaze never wavered from the Doctor's, even as he twitched his dark-grey Dorado-style hood up over his head. "Oh, I always do," he breathed, voice even but with real anger underneath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Double blast — Jack had misread the Doctor's intent yet again. This self-declared Captain might be a flighty con-man, but there was a core of steel to him, a sense that when he chose to dig in his heels he would defy any force or Power without counting the cost. Unfortunately, his back was up against the Doctor now, and any chance of reasoning with him was gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Frustrated, the Doctor broke their staring match first. If Jack was dead set on misinterpreting everything, that was his own problem. He turned his attention to Rose, and surprised a wary expression on her face; she hadn't missed the little by-play with the Captain, and it worried her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Right then," the Doctor said, making his voice bright and giving her a cheery (if tight-lipped) smile. "Let's go shopping." Rose return smile was tentative, but she didn't hesitate to slip her hand in his and follow him out of the TARDIS.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack followed the Doctor and Rose through the grey, chill streets of Dorado and found the setting exactly matched his mood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sure, they'd saved his life, taken him onto their — frankly marvelous — ship and seen to his bed and board (if, sadly, nothing else), but it had been obvious from that first night of dancing exactly what his role was to be: gooseberry and third wheel, rescued (he was now certain) solely at Rose's kindhearted whim. The Doctor wasn't going to refuse her anything she asked, that was clear. Without her intervention, Jack thought the Doctor would likely have left an errant con-man to his fate. Probably, given their recent exchange, the so-called "Time Lord" was even regretting having saved Jack's life and bringing a potential rival on board.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn't that Jack didn't get it — Rose was the Doctor's and he was hers. They’d both said so, in no uncertain terms. But how the hell was a man supposed to react when Rose smiled at him that way? Or when she and the Doctor traded one of those warm looks that set a lonely onlooker's heart to aching and wishing? The two of them were a painful reminder of everything he'd lost: Rose, with her youthful, civilian innocence, and the Doctor with his fierce, uncompromising honor. Two virtues Jack would never see again, that was for damn sure. But he’d have to be made of stone not to find them appealing all the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What kind of place could a failed Time Agent — hell, failed human being, if you tallied up his life with a critical eye — ever really have with these two? How long would it take to overstay his welcome, overstep the bounds . . . or break his heart?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose could feel Jack's brooding presence at her back, but restrained herself from looking at him. She was unsure of how best to react to the growing tension between the two men; they seemed determined to butt heads and she was afraid of making things worse if she tried to intervene. It was scary and frustrating at the same time. They were so much of a kind, they should be friends, she felt. Being fond of them both, she <i>wanted</i> them to be friends, certainly. If it came down to a choice, she would pick the Doctor — she always would — but leaving Jack behind would be more difficult than any separation she'd yet faced.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since her brain wasn't providing any worthwhile answers to her inner worries, Rose gave up for a moment and turned her attention to their surroundings. Even without the warning of possible enslavement, she wouldn't have been straying far from the Doctor's side in this place. It made the seedier portions of London look like model communities, and the people (most of them generically humaniod) had a pinched, unpleasant look to them that gave her chills. If she was Red Riding Hood, this was a whole city of wolves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fortunately, she wasn't alone. She glanced up at the Doctor, who was striding along with a grim expression and an uncompromising confidence that sent people who might otherwise have been trouble sidling out of their way. She squeezed his solid, cool hand and felt safer. He shot her a quick glance and his features softened with a small, reassuring smile, a tiny chink in his daunting armor, opened just for her. She'd long since admitted to herself that she loved him, but even if she hadn't, the melting feeling in her heart at that moment would have been proof positive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the Doctor's face hardened again, and he tugged her towards a side street, where Rose could hear the rumble of many subdued voices.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack had to give the Doctor credit; he knew the ropes. A few inquiries, a bit of money changing hands, and they left the small enclave of streetside vendors and loiterers, heading for another, larger gathering space in a different part of the city. Once there, Jack's eyebrows went up at some of the things being openly peddled from tables and blankets and rickety stalls. “Fond of the free market” indeed — and if laws were so lax or poorly-enforced here, no wonder there was a trade in sentient slaves. Though that portion of the economy, at least, was underground, or at least not on immediate display.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A place like this was rife with opportunities, if a person knew what he was doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor found the stall he was looking for, which was more a few piles of spare parts supporting an awning than an actual structure, and after few oblique, testing exchanges, he and the flinty-eyed middle-aged woman in charge got down to business with admirable speed. Most of the on-display parts were mere bulky, dirty junk, but when the proprietor shifted a rusty stabilizer housing and opened the storage trunk underneath, Jack glimpsed a glittering array of fresh, bright devices and components that would have given the Time Agency conniption fits. Not that that was his problem anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A padded protective case was opened for display. The Doctor took it and fingernail-flicked the translucent, coppery coil inside, nodding at the bell-like tone. Then the serious bargaining began. Jack huddled deeper into his hooded cloak against the chill and slipped his hands in his pockets, saying nothing. Didn't seem like there was anything for him to add, with the Doctor haggling away like an old pro and Rose (keeping an obvious deathgrip on the Doctor's hand), listening intently and admiringly. Jack didn't even need to be there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A drifting current of air brought a familiar, welcome scent over the general reek of wet pavement, sweat and hydrocarbons: roasting <i>t'ket.</i> Jack hadn't had a decent cup of that brew in ages. The ever-amazing TARDIS managed a close approximation, but there really was no substitute for fresh stalks roasted over a wood fire, then crushed and simmered while they were still hot and smoky. Jack cast around and spotted the booth, several spaces down. He considered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn't have any money for this time and place — or any time and place, beyond what little he'd had in his greatcoat pockets when he'd abandoned his ship. But he had high-quality, warm clothes on his back, his Agency wristband, a good breakfast in his stomach, an uninjured, well-rested body, and a pretty face. He'd started over with a lot less, more than once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor and Rose were still occupied, oblivious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This wouldn't be a bad place to strike out from. There were a lot of ways to raise a little starting capital, if one wasn't particularly squeamish and the law wasn’t particularly vigilant. Having a functional Vortex manipulator would open things out even more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose really was a good kid, and an honest one — Jack believed she was fond of him, and no doubt she'd miss him if he took off, but she'd get over it. The Doctor . . . well, he'd probably be glad to be rid of his extra passenger. He'd never showed any signs of trusting or accepting Jack, to the point of witholding any real information about himself. Instead, he'd stuck stubbornly to his ridiculous claim of being a Time Lord. Sure, he had a double pulse and a time machine, but body mods and temporal travel weren't exactly unknown in the greater Universe. The bigger-on-the-inside track was pretty impressive, and calling the ship a "TARDIS" was a cute touch, but Jack would have appreciated a little more respect for his intelligence all the same. Fairy tales didn't pop out of the Vortex at random.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack breathed in another wisp of scented woodsmoke, and decided to head in that direction. If he couldn't cadge a free cup of <i>t'ket</i> using nothing but his good looks and persuasion, he might as well give up and retire. He could be back with his beverage before the others would notice his absence, as absorbed as they were.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or, just maybe, he could get his <i>t'ket</i> and then keep going.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor and the woman at the parts booth reached an agreement, sealing their deal with a handclasp. He counted out a random assortment of coins and a few small spare parts produced from the pockets of his leather jacket, receiving the solenoid, still in its nondescript protective case, in exchange.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose, relieved to have their business conducted so quickly and easily, turned expecting to find Jack ready and waiting to return to the TARDIS. He wasn’t there. Immediately worried, she scanned the crowd for a hood the same shade of grey as Jack’s; grey was a popular color here, but she didn’t see anyone of the right height and build.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’d he go?” she asked the Doctor, who was also looking around, eyes sharp and mouth drawn into a grim line. “He was just here! We’ve gotta find him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Assuming he wants to be found,” the Doctor said, sounding so unsurprised, she simply stopped and stared at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think he just . . . left us?” she asked, appalled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Seems like this would be his sort of place,” the Doctor said, his expression going distant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose growled. “<i>I</i> don’t think so,” she said, giving the Doctor’s hand a sharp tug. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s got into you two.” Well, not entirely true, but she wasn’t going to go into <i>that</i> now. “He saved our lives, and the Earth. He’s part of the crew, yeah? What if he’s in trouble?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor looked down at her, his eyes pale and unreadable, alien in that weird way which seemed both unfocused and alert at once. Then he blinked, and his features reanimated, brows drawing down. “If he’s in trouble it’s probably no less than he deserves,” he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose opened her mouth, but before she could say more, the Doctor added. “S’ just lucky for him that his wristband’ll stand out like a sore thumb.” He handed Rose the solenoid case and slipped the sonic screwdriver form his pocket, thumbing it on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She couldn’t help but laugh. “What, you’re actually gonna do a scan for alien tech?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah. It’s a scan for <i>human</i> tech. Keep the Spock jokes to yourself, please,” he said, beginning to move the screwdriver in a wide arc.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought human <i>was</i> alien, for you,” Rose pointed out, worry easing enough for her to joke easily. With the Doctor committed to the search, she was sure they’d find Jack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor raised his eyebrows and glanced in her direction. “Good. You’re learning,” he said with approval, just before the screwdriver gave an alerting <i>beep</i>. “This way!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She caught his free hand, and they were off.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>As these things so often do, this story expanded once I started unpacking it from my head, and the projected two chapters have become three.  Thanks for your patience, everyone (RL has been crazy of late, and it really took a bite out of my writing); I hope to have this wrapped up soon!  Many, many thanks are due to aibhinn  for warp-speed betaing; without her help, this would be taking even longer to reach your screen!  :)</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Time to start planning my retirement party, I guess, Jack thought blearily as he thudded to the concrete floor, wrists, ankles, upper arms and mouth all wrapped with some sort of very tough tape. He came to rest on his side, facing a portion of blank, brick wall.<br/>
<br/>
“Gods-dammit,” an irritated voice said, sounding very distant even though it was right behind him. “Watch his face. If he’s all beaten up it’ll knock a couple hundred off his value and we don’t have time to sit around while he heals up.”<br/>
<br/>
“I didn’t drop him on his face, did I?” a second voice said irritably. “For fuck’s sake, give me a little credit . . .”<br/>
<em><br/>
Glad to know I’ve ended up in the hands of such professionals,</em> Jack thought. He knew he should be more worried, but it was hard to focus.<br/>
<br/>
He’d got his cup of <em>t’ket</em> all right, and been vain enough to think the speed with which it was given was a credit to his charm and attractiveness. The truth became apparent about thirty seconds later when whatever the hot, strongly-flavored beverage had been spiked with hit his stomach lining and immediately jumped to his bloodstream.<br/>
<br/>
<em>Of all the</em> t’ket<em> stands in the world, I had to walk into that one,</em> he thought, and giggled helplessly behind the tape.<br/>
<br/>
“Shit, how much did she give him? I'm getting tired of Triss and her spur-of-the-moment picks. I hope Ikan shows to pick him up before he goes into convulsions or something,” first voice commented. Complain-y bastard. Probably a real pain in the ass to work with. Well, at least it sounded like Jack’s contact with the man would be short.<br/>
<br/>
That brought up vague images of a future Jack really didn’t want to contemplate. Escape was possible from a situation like this, but it wasn’t always likely. There were some really effective and unpleasant ways out there to keep slaves in line.  This drugging was the merest tip of the iceberg.<br/>
<br/>
He felt a brief flicker of hope: Rose and the Doctor were still out there. If they were together and able to watch each other’s backs (and resisted the lure of freshly-roasted <em>t’ket)</em>, they should still be all right. Jack’s captors had been in such a hurry to drag him from sight they hadn't frisked him properly, or even noticed the Agency wristband hidden under his shirt sleeve (now further covered by an additional layer of tape). Surely the Doctor could trace the field of his Vortex manipulator . . . .<br/>
<br/>
<em>Idiot,</em> he told himself.  <em>What makes you think they’ll find you, or even come looking?</em>  He’d been a hairsbreadth from walking away, and the Doctor was a lot less perceptive than Jack thought if he hadn’t twigged to that.<br/>
<br/>
<em>Rose</em>, the other, more optimistic hemisphere of his brain offered. <em>She’s not the sort to give up on people, and she has the Doctor wrapped ‘round her little finger.</em><br/>
<br/>
<em>Yeah, and fairies and unicorns and Time Lords are real, </em>the cynical side of Jack’s brain shot back. The soft and hopeful side of him whimpered into the tape covering his mouth.<br/>
<br/>
What felt like the toe of a boot tapped him none too gently just above a kidney. “Shut up! Gods, pretty as a girl and just as weepy.”<br/>
<br/>
<em>Trolls, though, I think I believe in them,</em> Jack thought, followed almost simultaneously by, <em>Try being this stoned and see if you don’t get a little weepy yourself, you shithead.</em>  At least his two halves were momentarily united in their opinions. That felt good.<br/>
<br/>
The second, more forceful boot-toe to the back didn't feel very good, however. Jack bit down on the instinctive noise of pain his body wanted to make, trying to exercise some tiny degree of control and dignity while he still could. Apparently the only bruises his captors were worried about involved his face.  Reality was rippling a little around the edges, and he wondered how serious the Troll had been about the possibility of convulsions.<br/>
<br/>
There was a loud, slamming noise, and the floor vanished out from under Jack while the fabric of reality warped in ways it shouldn't. Just before the sensation completely blanked his mind, Jack’s last thought was, <em>Funny, I never knew convulsions felt exactly like an unshielded temporal pulse . . .</em><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
---<br/>
<br/>
The sonic screwdriver led the Doctor and Rose into a bleak, empty part of the city, all warehouses and blank, staring walls stained with soot and rime. The Doctor paused outside a rusty door. He buzzed the lock into submission, but flicked off the screwdriver and slipped it into his pocket without opening the door. He leaned close to Rose and murmured in her ear, "He's in there."<br/>
<br/>
Rose nodded, shivering with the chill air and her internal tension. It didn't look like a place anyone would go voluntarily.<br/>
<br/>
"Give me the case," the Doctor added, wiggling his fingers invitingly. Mystified, Rose passed over the protective case holding the solenoid.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor snapped open the catches and lifted out the fragile coil, cupping it in his right hand; braced between the heel of his palm and the tips of his fingers, it was a near-perfect fit. He set the case carelessly down on the pavement of the alley. Then he leaned forward to whisper in her ear again.<br/>
<br/>
"Keep to my left, and hold my hand until I say otherwise." He slipped his left hand, cool and reassuring, into her right and then kicked open the door.<br/>
<br/>
---<br/>
<br/>
When Jack's senses started working again, he was still lying on the floor but someone was tugging at his bound arms, cutting them free and rolling him over, away from the wall.<br/>
<br/>
"Jack!" Rose said, sounding relieved and worried at the same time.  She was kneeling next to him, her hazel eyes wide within their habitual ring of makeup.  <em>She always wears too much . . . .</em>  "Can you stand up?" She tugged at him and he realized his feet and legs were free, too.<br/>
<br/>
"Hurry," a low Northern-accented voice growled from above.  “That won’t keep them for long.”  Jack rolled his eyes and got a dizzy glimpse of the Doctor looming behind Rose.  A pulsing orange light flared between the fingers of his right hand. He was glaring off to the side — towards Jack's captors, most likely.<br/>
<br/>
With a tremendous effort (and leaning against Rose more than he would have liked), Jack heaved himself to his feet. A glance confirmed that there were two humanoid bodies lying curled on the concrete a short distance away. It was a relief to think the disorienting temporal-warp sensation might have existed outside of his own head.<br/>
<br/>
He made a muffled sound, and realized the tape still covered his mouth. Rose reached up as if to pull it free, but the shift in her position destabilized Jack, who lurched again. The Doctor, distracted by the movement, turned his head towards them. That left only Jack watching when one of his former captors, apparently not as incapacitated as he first appeared, sat up and pointed a weapon in the direction of Rose and the Doctor.<br/>
<br/>
There wasn't time for a warning, even if he could have verbalized one.  Jack responded out of sheer spinal reflex, shoving forward into Rose and pushing her against the Doctor in turn, seeking to get them out of the line of fire even as he replaced their bodies with his own. His movements were slow and clumsy, only partially effective; desperate, he twisted, trying to get the bulk of his torso between the others and the shot he was certain would come at any moment.  Rose squeaked and the Doctor yelped, but the expected shot never came because orange light flared and the rest of the world simply stopped moving.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor braced himself and wrapped one arm round both Rose and Jack in a clumsy hug; he held his other hand out and away from them. Cupped in that hand was the source of the orange light: a raging ball of twisting, warping fire with a white-hot core.<br/>
<br/>
Jack had seen a fully powered-up temporal solenoid before, from behind three inches of transparent shielding, but he'd never expected to see one up close and personal — just a few feet of air between him and it — much less one held in a bare hand. Especially a bare hand that wasn’t crisping into a cinder.<br/>
<br/>
"Steady!" the Doctor snapped, sounding less angry than stressed. "We need to get out of here — I can't keep this up. Whatever you do, don't break physical contact with each other and me. S' long as we're touching, you're safe. Rose, see if you can't get Jack between us . . . ."<br/>
<br/>
<em>Just where I've always wanted to be. Too bad I'm in no shape to enjoy it</em>, Jack thought as careful maneuvering allowed the Doctor to slip his shoulder under Jack's arm, with Rose moving to support his opposite side, all without breaking contact. It was almost like a group hug, except for the tension in the others' bodies and the awkward shuffle that commenced in the direction of the door.<br/>
<br/>
On the way out, Jack looked over his shoulder for a glimpse of his former captors, now seemingly frozen in place. The air had a dead, stale feel to it, and sounds were dull and flat, without resonance.  Out in the alleyway the silence was nearly total, eerie and unnatural in a city of this size. There should at least have been a background rush and whisper, the inevitable side effect of life and machinery all around. But the only noises were their footsteps and, increasingly, the Doctor's harsh breathing, loud out of proportion even to the effort of supporting Jack. Jack turned his head and saw the Doctor's features were sheened with sweat, gleaming in the ruddy light of the charged solenoid. The Doctor never sweated.<br/>
<br/>
The orange light dimmed, and everything shifted again. Jack was put in mind of an engine slowly ramping up to speed, only in this case it wasn't an engine, it was reality. Sound bled back, until by the time they were back out on the main thoroughfare, everything seemed as it should, all the city noises humming and rustling along normally. Jack sagged between his companions, exerting absolute willpower just to keep his feet moving until they turned a corner and there was a familiar blue box in front of them.<br/>
<br/>
Together Rose and the Doctor horsed Jack through the double doors, then down the corridor to his room, where he was dumped unceremoniously onto his bed. With admirable teamwork, the Doctor moved to unlace one of Jack's boots while Rose undid the other. Sadly, they stopped there and left the rest of his clothing in place. Last, and least welcome of all, the Doctor reached up and finally ripped the tape from Jack's mouth, as Rose had attempted in the warehouse before being rudely interrupted.<br/>
<br/>
"Quiet," the Doctor said in response to Jack's inarticulate yelp of protest, his voice curt, but not unkind. Then: "Rest, lad. We've got it from here." The tone was noticeably softer and Jack would have replied, except for the total loss of consciousness that hit him amidships and dragged him into temporary oblivion.<br/>
<br/>
---<br/>
<br/>
When he awoke again, in one sharp snap of returning awareness, he could tell he'd been out for a while. His mouth tasted bad and his rumpled Doradan clothing felt sweaty and unpleasant against his skin.  He was still woozy, but that sensation faded as he stumbled into the small bathroom attached to his room and rinsed his mouth, then headed for the wardrobe and something more suitable (and cleaner) for TARDIS wear.<br/>
<br/>
He'd stripped down to nothing, still not working at a hundred percent efficiency, when he heard a knock at his door. He was halfway across the room before his dazed brain kicked in and reminded him of the Doctor's rather terrifying orientation rundown, delivered Jack's first night aboard, which had included early twenty-first century Earth dress codes, how to conform to them, and the penalties if he didn’t. So, on the way to the door, Jack grabbed a pair of jeans off of a chair and wriggled into them. With all the required bits of himself covered, he opened the door.<br/>
<br/>
His caution paid off, since the person on the other side of the door was Rose. Still, the way she flung herself at him with a glad cry hinted that she wasn't particularly offended by his state of near-undress.<br/>
<br/>
"Jack!" she said into his shoulder, her warm breath brushing along his skin as her arms wrapped around his waist with considerable strength. "The Doctor said you were awake.  I’m so glad you're all right!"<br/>
<br/>
It was such an unforced, genuine display of feeling, Jack was touched to the core. He wasn't used to people caring about his continued health except in ways related to mutual survival, sex, profit, or some combination thereof. In fact he couldn't remember the last time someone had been so pleased to see him solely for himself. It might even have been back in the murky past, before the terrible day he lost his childhood, his father and his brother all at once.<br/>
<br/>
"'Course I am," he said, reassuringly. He rocked Rose side-to-side in his arms. "No reason I shouldn't be, after a certain daring rescue." He stopped and pulled back so he could look directly into her hazel eyes, hoping she would read his sincerity. "Thank you," he said, meaning it more than he had in a long time.<br/>
<br/>
She broke into a dazzling grin, and even though he didn’t think she realized how much significance he'd put into his words, there was no doubt he'd made her happy.  It was a frightening feeling, knowing he could do that to her, because it also meant he could hurt her.  And that, he realized, was the last thing he <em>ever</em> wanted to do.<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't do much, really," she said, with a half-shrug. "It was mostly the Doctor and that solenoid thing. He's the one you should thank."<br/>
<br/>
There was no putting it off, really.  Jack smiled at her, as he’d always smiled on his way to the gallows.  "Let me get a shirt," he said, "and I will."<br/>
<br/>
</span>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>W00t!  And here it is, the concluding chapter!  Thanks to everyone who's stuck with this thorugh my episode of Muse Fail, and further special thanks to aibhinn for more warp-speed beta-ing (I honestly don't know where all those extra commas come from -- I think they breed in corners when I'm not looking . . .).</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The first thing Jack saw of the Doctor when they entered the control room was a pair of well-worn boots sticking out from underneath one of the facets surrounding the central column.  Tools and parts were scattered all around.  Clearly, the new solenoid was being fitted into place.  From the tone of the ship's pulsing engines they were in a holding pattern somewhere, no longer planetbound.  Jack knew it was a testament to how deeply he'd been asleep that he hadn't felt their dematerialization.<br/><br/>"Doctor!" Rose called, "Jack's awake again!"<br/><br/>"Told you," the Doctor's muffled voice replied.  "He just needed to sleep it off."  He slithered feet-first out from underneath the console, moving with the combination of blunt strength and boneless grace that Jack always found both arresting and disconcerting, and bounced lightly to his feet.  He cocked his head, considering Jack, and memories of the recent rescue surfaced full-force in Jack's mind, a little blurry around the edges, but still undeniably coherent.  No way now to pretend the Doctor was just a normal person with a lot of weird body-mods.<br/><br/>"Thanks for coming after me," Jack said, wrestling down the sudden desire to flee.  "For saving me."<br/><br/>"You're welcome," the Doctor said with a faint nod.  Then his quicksilver attention shifted to the box of tools at his feet.  "Bugger," he said, in a tone of mild annoyance.  "It's not in here.  Rose?"<br/><br/>"Yeah?"<br/><br/>"Would you do me a favor, go get me the spanner I need?  It's in the second-level storage room, blue toolbox.  S' a little bigger than this one–" he stooped, pulling an example from the box at his feet and holding it up, "–and it's got a red handle.  You can't miss it, it's the only one like it in there."<br/><br/>Rose raised an eyebrow.  "Second level storage room," she repeated.  "That's the one with the double doors, right?  Fifth corridor along, past the wardrobe room?"<br/><br/>"That's it."  The Doctor smiled ingratiatingly.<br/><br/>Rose glanced back and forth between the two men, considering.<br/><br/>"Right.  It's a long walk.  I'll be a while."  She turned on her heel and left.<br/><br/>Jack and the Doctor both watched her go in silence.  When the control room door swung shut after her, they turned back to one another.  Jack watched every last bit of expression drain from the Doctor's face, leaving a still, inscrutable mask behind; it was not a way the Doctor ever looked when Rose was in the room.  His eyes were cool and pale, distant and perilous.<br/><br/><i>This man has two hearts and can hold raw Time in his bare hands and not burn from it.</i><br/><br/>It was terrifying to be facing him alone, but Jack couldn't say why; he knew the Doctor well enough now to recognize the initially-threatened airlock tour (to be implemented if Jack stepped out of line) as nothing more than a bluff.  He was confident there was no physical danger here.  But there was still something in the air that scared him spitless.<br/><br/><i>When in doubt, take the offensive.</i><br/><br/>"You're slower getting that thing into place than I would have thought," Jack said, in a steady voice that didn't seem like his own.<br/><br/>"I had a errand to run first," the Doctor said, voice equally steady.  "After we got you to bed, I went back out, stopped by a certain set of offices, let them know what was going on in the marketplace -- and that it wasn't approved of.  Amazing what a few words in the right ear can accomplish.  Don't suppose there's anything much left of your friends and their <i>t'ket</i> stand by now."<br/><br/>Jack snorted, cynical.  "I doubt the local government could do much."<br/><br/>"Did I say they were government offices?" the Doctor said.  "They were the offices of the people who mattered.  The ones with power."<br/><br/>"Why?  You seemed fine with the idea of a slave trade before," Jack shot back.<br/><br/>"Wouldn't say I was <i>fine</i> with it," the Doctor said calmly, refusing to be goaded.  "But I was willing to let things be.  I can't go retooling <i>every</i> culture I run across; the timelines couldn't handle the strain, for one thing.  So if something runs well enough on its own terms, it's live and let live.  But these people went and caught my attention.  Bad move, that.  Once I'm paying attention, that's when things happen."<br/><br/>It was a statement, not a boast.  Jack remembered the Doctor's offhand claim to have brought down Villengard single-handed.  He believed that now.  He believed a lot of things all at once, the familiar boundaries of his world erasing and redrawing themselves with disconcerting speed.<br/><br/>"I remember," Jack said, the words coming out like an accusation.  "You held a charged temporal solenoid in your bare hand.  That wasn't an hallucination.  You warped Time, and then you stopped it altogether."<br/><br/>"I didn't stop Time -- just sped up a pocket holding the three of us 'till everything else might as well have been standing still."<br/><br/>Jack gave his head a little shake without taking his eyes from the Doctor's and couldn't stop the huff of desperate laughter that escaped his throat, though he managed to keep it from turning into hysteria.  "No, y’see, you can't have done that.  Nobody can do that."<br/><br/>"<i>I</i> can."<br/><br/>"But you'd have to . . . ." Jack trailed off.  If he said it aloud, there'd be no going back. Everything would change.  The knot of fear in the pit of his stomach tightened.<br/><br/>"Have to what?"  His tone was casual, almost disinterested, but the Doctor was watching Jack with keen intensity.<br/><br/>"Have to really be a Time Lord," Jack finished, with the sense of falling completely into insanity.  He was adrift now, no stable shore in sight.<br/><br/>The Doctor's eyebrows went up fractionally, the first hint of real expression since Rose had left.  "Said as much, didn't I?"<br/><br/>"I didn't believe you then."<br/><br/>"I know."<br/><br/>"How did you <i>do</i> it?" Jack asked, control cracking a little, but wanting something concrete to hold onto, something he could understand.  "Where did you get the power?  The solenoid wasn't hooked up to anything!"<br/><br/>The Doctor shrugged.  He dropped the spanner back in the toolbox at his feet and crossed his arms, leaning his hip against the edge of the console.  Jack wasn't fooled by the implied relaxation.<br/><br/>"It was hooked up to me," the Doctor said, his silver-blue eyes taking in every detail of Jack's reactions.  "The first shot was about three years of my life in this body.  The second, more like ten."<br/><br/>"What, you gave up thirteen years of your life for <i>me</i>?"<br/><br/>"Yeah, somewhere in that range.  Not that I expect it’ll be a problem.  I haven’t regenerated from old age in a very long time."<br/><br/>"<i>Why?</i>"<br/><br/>"Because Rose was right."<br/><br/>Jack was completely, utterly lost now.  "About what?"<br/><br/>"That first night, when I took her off to bed, before I went back to talk with you, I told her not to trust you.  Said that just because you'd saved the world and us didn't mean you were a hero, or even one of the good guys.  She was half asleep by then, yawning her head off, and I didn't think she was really listening.  Then out she pops with, 'Oh, he's a hero, all right.  He just doesn't know it yet.'  And y'know, that stuck in my head.  Rose isn't always right -- I've seen her be pretty spectacularly wrong, in fact -- but her instincts are good.  I thought she was wrong this time out, but I gave you another chance when she asked, and you finally proved her point."<br/><br/>"How?" Jack grated out, "If saving the world <i>and</i> the two of you wasn't enough before?"<br/><br/>The Doctor lowered his chin, and his gaze chilled even further.  Jack's stomach dropped.  Time Lords, the old stories had said, were long on justice and short on mercy.  The sense of being weighed and judged was acute.  He remembered how it had felt when the Doctor ripped into him back in World War II London, made him into a fool, kicked the last fragile supports out from under Jack's broken, battered pride, leaving him with nothing.<br/><br/>"The first time you saved Rose, when she fell from the balloon, there was no risk to yourself.  Just a pretty girl to be saved, and maybe be grateful to you," the Doctor said, calmly, a man stating facts.<br/><br/>Jack bit back the outraged response that welled up in him, held silent by the Doctor's unwavering attention.<br/><br/>"The next time, when you teleported us, same thing.  No risk.  When you worked with us to save the world, you were saving your past and your timeline, so that could have been self-interest.  When you stopped the bomb falling, that was more impressive, I admit, but it could have been a salve to a guilty conscience.  The way your stasis field failed was a thousand-to-one piece of bad luck, so again, you mightn't have expected any cost to it."<br/><br/><i>It wasn't like that!</i> Jack thought, shaking with reaction, hearing the long litany laid out before him, feeling smaller and more worthless than ever before, knowing there was nothing he could say in his own defense because the Doctor's logic was tight and perfect.<br/><br/>"But then," the Doctor continued, with the faintest thaw in his icy manner, "just now, you saved us again, or tried to."<br/><br/>"What, when I tried to push you out of the way?" Jack burst out.  "How does that count?  I was drugged half out of my mind and it wouldn't have worked, anyway.  You were the one who saved us.  I just acted without thinking."<br/><br/>The Doctor's chin came up and his gaze speared straight through Jack.  "Exactly.  You didn't think.  You reacted — from the gut and the heart.  You knew the danger on some level, or you wouldn't have tried to save us, but you put yourself in harm's way without hesitation."  He smiled then, the ice cracked, and underneath that was, amazingly, warmth.  "<i>That</i> took a hero.  Showed your true colors at last."<br/><br/>Jack gaped, letting the Doctor's unexpected approval sink into his defenseless mind.  It felt good.  Better than good; it felt fantastic, the way a single crumb might taste to a man who hadn't realized he was starving.  It was a sensation of frightening power, and Jack fought it, trying to distance himself from something he suddenly wanted more than anything, ever.<br/><br/>"I was going to leave," he said, reckless, running even as he stood still.  "I'd almost decided, there in the marketplace."<br/><br/>"I figured as much," the Doctor said, and the legends were wrong, because the compassion he radiated was far more powerful than his judgment.  "I was ready to let you go, too.  But now . . . do you still want to leave?"<br/><br/>Jack swallowed, and looked around the vaulted expanse of the control room, graceful and alien at the same time it was haphazard and prosaic.<br/><br/>"This really is a TARDIS, then?" he asked, instead of answering the Doctor's question.<br/><br/>The Doctor snorted.  "'Course it's a TARDIS, if I'm a Time Lord."<br/><br/>"Is it . . . <i>she</i> really alive?"  Jack's head tilted back as he followed the central column housing the time rotor, the core of the ship, all the way up to the dome of the ceiling.<br/><br/>"Find out for yourself," the Doctor said, and there was a hint of challenging amusement in his half-smile.  "Touch the column."<br/><br/>Jack's head snapped back down and towards the Doctor.  "You said the whole console was bio-locked!  That it'd shock anyone but you!"<br/><br/>"Yeah, that's what I said -- easier for new people to believe than telling them right off that the TARDIS is alive, and she'll only let people touch her if she likes them.  But I think she's taken a shine to you."  A deeper spark of amusement, and a dash of encouragement.  "Go on."<br/><br/>Hesitantly, Jack stepped forward and reached up to brush his fingers against the cool glass of the column.<br/><br/>Jack came from a long line of sailors, equally at home on the sea or in space, so from his earliest childhood he'd absorbed the stories and superstitions relating to ships and the way they sometimes seemed more like more live things than inanimate objects, capable of being lucky or unlucky, loving or jealous, even of expressing the collective soul of their crews.  It was a concept woven into the very deepest parts of his consciousness, even though he'd long since chalked the whole idea up to human wishful thinking and anthropomorphism.<br/><br/>Until now.<br/><br/>It was less a revelation than a shift in perception, as if he'd finally noticed a constant background noise he'd been tuning out.  From the first moment he'd boarded her, the TARDIS had been singing; he just hadn't realized it.<br/><br/>He heard her song now, and it was stunningly beautiful.<br/><br/>He stared into the glowing column, entranced . . . and the TARDIS stared back, every bit as aware and alert and measuring in her own alien way as the Doctor was in his.  She saw Jack, she knew him, and she accepted him, allowing his touch as some great, wild beast might let him stroke its flank.<br/><br/>"Oh," Jack said, unable to formulate anything better.  This was the ancient dream of The Ship made real, and it hit him hard.  Every inch of skin on his body was alive and tingling, not with fear, but with wonder, pure and unadulterated, the impossible accepted completely.  "Oh, you . . . ."<br/><br/>The years were peeled away and Jack remembered the boy he'd been, the stories he'd absorbed and loved and hoped to be part of someday.  Adulthood had been unkind, and offered up experiences to make the worst parts of those tales pale in comparison: horrors, terrors and sorrows; love lost, promises broken, quests failed, trust betrayed.  In that regard, he'd found the old fairy tales true indeed.  Dragons existed, regardless of their form, and they gave no quarter.<br/><br/>But . . . .<br/><br/>If the bad things were true, and more than true, what about the good ones?  He'd long since given up on them, but maybe he'd been unlucky so far, maybe he'd just missed out on finding them: all the joys and beauties, romances and victories; courage and trust and love.  What if the bright things were real, too, on a scale to outstrip his childhood visions as completely as the darkness had?<br/><br/>What if there really were heroes to bring the dragons down?<br/><br/>Blinking eyes gone damp, head filled with the TARDIS's golden voice and a swell of emotion too great for words, he turned to look at the Doctor.<br/><br/>The Time Lord was grinning ear-to-ear, and Jack had the intoxicating, long-forgotten sensation of seeing his own heart reflected in someone else's eyes.  It didn't matter that they were different species, that the Doctor was nearly a thousand years old and Jack not even forty.  The connection of sharing the TARDIS’s song bypassed it all.<br/><br/>Without Jack noticing, that was the moment the scattered, shattered pieces of his heart picked themselves up and reassembled into a new configuration, one that might bend and crack under the weight of undreamt-of future stresses but which would never truly break again.  All he felt at the moment, though, was an unexpected sense of freedom and lightness, all his fear gone now.  The only possible reaction was to laugh out loud with the relief of it.<br/><br/>"What?" the Doctor asked, raising his eyebrows, still grinning.<br/><br/>"That's <i>amazing</i>!" Jack said.<br/><br/>"She is, isn't she?"  The Doctor's grin faded to a smile, but his eyes still shone with delight.<br/><br/>"If," Jack began, and stopped.  He brushed his fingers along the crystal of the column one last time before letting his hand drop to the edge of the console, where it rested comfortably on the formerly-forbidden surface.<br/><br/>"What?"<br/><br/>"It's just, if all this is real . . . ." Jack said slowly, trying to find the right words.<br/><br/>"It is."<br/><br/>". . . Then, what else is real?  Out there?"  Jack waved his hand vaguely around to indicate the Universe at large.<br/><br/>"Dunno," the Doctor said in a tone of cheerful anticipation.  "Stick with us and find out."  His eyes narrowed slightly.  "Assuming you want to.  You still haven't answered my question."<br/><br/>Jack laughed again.  "Are you <i>kidding</i>?  After this, you're never getting rid of me!"<br/><br/>The Doctor grinned back, but whatever he would have said next was interrupted by Rose's return.<br/><br/>"I'm pleased to report," she said, walking to where the men stood "there really <i>was</i> a spanner."  She held it up as proof.<br/><br/>"Now why would I send you after something that wasn't there?" the Doctor said, sounding mildly surprised.<br/><br/>"Oh, I dunno, maybe to get me out of the way so you two could have a private, bloke-y moment together or something," Rose said, in a tone of good-natured sarcasm.<br/><br/>"For shame, Rose," Jack said, still hovering on the giddy edge of his emotional high.  "<i>Never</i> accuse a guy of not knowing where his tool is."<br/><br/>Rose groaned and closed her eyes.  "To think," she announced to the room at large, "I could have walked back here even slower than I did."  She opened her eyes and gave Jack an insincere glare.  Then her glance shifted as she caught sight of Jack's hand, resting on the control console.<br/><br/>"Looks like things went well, then," she added, and her tone was much softer.  Her eyes met Jack's and she smiled; it gave her face a soft, luminous glow that had nothing to do with the diffuse warm/cold light of the control room.  She reached up and touched the TARDIS's central column with gentle reverence.  "Welcome to the club."<br/><br/>"Oi!  <i>Not</i> a club, thanks!  You make us sound like the Mouseketeers," the Doctor interjected with scorn.  "If we're anything, we're a crew."<br/><br/>"Right, fine, whatever. <i>Crew,</i>" Rose said, rolling her eyes.  "You still want this, after I hiked all that way for it?"  She flipped the spanner around in her hand and offered the handle to the Doctor.<br/><br/>"Nope.  S' not for me.  Give it to him."  The Doctor nodded at Jack.<br/><br/>Jack took the spanner from Rose, confused.  "What am I supposed to do with this?"<br/><br/>"Humans," the Doctor growled.  "Thick's your normal state of mind, isn't it?  You're supposed to help me put this solenoid in place.  With your training, you should understand temporal technology.  Time you started earning your keep."<br/><br/>"Sir, yes, sir!" Jack said, snapping to a species of attention, though his civilian clothing and wide smile didn't help the effect any.<br/><br/>"First thing you can do is put a sock in that 'sir' rubbish.  Next thing you can do is get to work re-tightening the bolts on that transducer.  Rose?"<br/><br/>"Sir!"<br/><br/>"None of your cheek.  Find me that box of o-rings.  S' round here somewhere, I just saw it . . ."<br/><br/>The three crewmates set to work, while all around the strands of the TARDIS's song twisted into harmonies heard and unheard.<br/></span>
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